love hina

If it wasn’t apparent, the title of this post was when I was typing on my keyboard.. but my hands were shifted to the right one key. I laughed at what came out, so I decided to keep it. So here’s my post about Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai.

For pacing reasons, I’ve been delaying my reactions to an anime 5 episodes in, as opposed to what most people do. First impressions and 3 episode taste tests are already something anyone — if not nearly everyone already — does these days. Five episodes seems to be a good length for digesting the flow and pacing of longer slash slower shows. And I’ve also been busy in real life. Anime bloggers simply can’t avoid it, since it rarely makes money, unless you’re hired by a media group to work for places like Japanator or AnimeNewsNetwork. Although I doubt solely.. wait, what the hell am I talking about?

Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai so far has surpassed my initial impression. The first episode actually wasn’t very interesting. All the signs are pointing towards a standard harem show. The mechanics of relationships at this point now need to rely on good writing and scenarios for the characters to participate in. For me, this show didn’t have a pull on me until episode 4, which was good timing since the 5th one has slowed down once again on development to let the characters have more breathing room. Just as luck would have it, the 5th episode gave Sakuraba a piece of the spotlight. It wasn’t much, but it made me happy. It should be obvious; Sakuraba is my favorite. Ever since Love Hina, I’ve been a fan of the [jet] black, straight hair female characters. She’s also given a camera shot with one of my peculiarly favorite angle.

The screencap above is what I like about anime. There’s such a strong focus on silent beauty in much anime, one of its best methods of portraying it is through this side angle. In a single moment, I was smitten with her demure realization of Kakei’s concern for her. A head turn and a slight blush; it’s a cliche reaction that I’m hopelessly addicted to. It is also my favorite angle because it is one that is exemplary of anime character design spatial sense. Extreme examples include Studio SHAFT’s insane head-tilts, and other anime with zany character designs that need to look consistent from any angle. You don’t get scenes like those very often, where the nose is prominent enough to need more definition than a mere dot or a line. One could say that anime characters are only given noses when something important is happening.

If I were to simplify and reduce my appreciation for anime to a single frame, it’d probably be this.